more sinned against than sinning
by hyacinthian
Summary: Edith has read King Lear too many times.


Edith spends the majority of her childhood with her nose buried inside a book. Histories, travelogues, novels – hidden behind curtains and nooks, she pores over the pictures and worlds in the pages, hoping one day for escape. The best of all were the fairy tales - there was always something so alluring about the idea of being the unnoticed of the ugly stepsisters, of one day knowing someone would come along and find just that _one _special foot that slipped easily into the glass slipper.

At ten, a handsome man rides in on a horse. One of Father's business associates. Still, she can't help but feel excited.

Mary offers to show him around, her laughs following Edith through the emptied corridors.

* * *

><p>At thirteen, Mary is already everything that Edith will never be able to attain. Dark hair, flushes of color in the cheeks, and social abilities her mother can't stop extolling the virtues of, even as Sybil runs around the halls at a gallop, giggling and laughing.<p>

She feels caught in between, and as the number of books in the library she hasn't read or has any interest in reading begins to dwindle down, she's reminded of how alone she is in the house.

In the world.

It doesn't do to pretend otherwise.

* * *

><p>Still, she learns the merits of the system, learns the rules because she is <em>Lady <em>Edith Crawley, and there is no distinguishing otherwise. The lessons of society profess that merit and morality mean little when faced against money, or even better, a _title_. And, luckily enough, she has both. If Mary doesn't squander what all the three of them have to share.

It's nice, Edith thinks, to know that things beyond her control will at least guarantee that she will never be without false friends or false lovers, that no matter what the situation, wealth attracts people like light attracts insects, and if one day someone gets burned – well, it was bound to happen, but why should that make life any less worth living?

* * *

><p>She takes an early evening one night while Mary sits with another suitor.<p>

Sybil sits on her bed, halfheartedly tugging off one glove, exhausted. Sybil's lips turn down at the corners, but still, she leans her weight a little against Edith, like proper sisters, and Edith tries to suppress the feeling that there's something so false about the moment. "You ought to try to be nice to Mary, you know," Sybil says.

Edith's lips press into a thin line. "She's _horrible _to me. Why should I be any different?"

"You sound like you're fighting a war."

"Aren't I?"

Sybil pulls away, trying unsuccessfully to mask her horror. "Against your own sister?"

Edith relaxes for a brief moment, pressing a soft kiss to her sister's temple. "You ought to go to sleep before you collapse right here."

Sybil yawns. "I can make it a little longer. I really wish you and Mary would - "

"What?" Edith says, with a sarcastic smile. "Act sisterly?"

"Well," Sybil sputters, "_yes_."

"Things get different when you get older. Everything is a … struggle." Sybil frowns for a moment, but then starts undressing.

"Look at us, Edith. We're perfectly – well, we get along fine."

And Edith can't help herself from wondering when that will change; she supposes part of her should be appalled that there's no doubt left in her mind that they will all drift apart, like ships in the sea, mooring further and further apart until they are on opposite sides of an ocean.

Perhaps she was always meant to be the one adrift at sea – an inspiration for tragic sea shanties about the hopelessness of discovery.

* * *

><p>Mary floats in hours later, as Edith blinks sleepily up at her from the bed.<p>

"Mary?"

Mary doesn't answer, and Edith feels the pull of another current.

* * *

><p>They grow older and further apart and Edith devotes her time to the piano and drawing, skills she hasn't quite mastered.<p>

"Given up on _learning _conversation?" Mary hisses over breakfast, buttering a piece of toast. "Might as well have - you were terrible."

Edith swallows the insult, teeth tearing into her lip as she tries to remember the virtues her teacher said she possessed. Mother smiles affectionately at Mary and Edith recites etiquette lessons in her head.

* * *

><p>The night Sir Anthony smiles placidly at her over tea, Edith decides the slight turn in her stomach must be love because of the way she has read about it hundreds, thousands of times.<p>

She feels her heart beat loudly in her chest and wonders if it has ever felt this way.

* * *

><p>Mary takes him.<p>

There is nothing else to say.

* * *

><p>Age creeps like a ghoul and Edith knows that one day the bloom of youth will be gone, that she will be left a burden to her family, that she will own nothing, not even the house that serves as such a fortress. It's all she can do not to throw her fists against everything in sight against it – she will not be made to feel unwanted in her own home, and she will fight to keep her birthright.<p>

Even if Mary doesn't understand what she has, Edith realizes the gravity of the entire situation – a woman without any suitors?

One night, sneaking another glass of brandy, she dully considers the thought of herself in a convent. A bitter laugh creeps up but sticks in her throat as a sob; born into circumstances like these – to become a _nun_ – like an inversion of a Dickens novel.

She can't get the image of Mary's patronising smirk out of her mind.

She pulls at the pins in her hair, tears at the perfect curls until her hair falls flat, a mess of pins at her feet – the epitome of undone, and Edith stares at the reflection in one of the mirrors, notes the sunkenness of her own eyes, the lost pallor in her cheeks; she looks like quite the madwoman, and she supposes it suits her just fine.

* * *

><p>She creeps down to the servants' quarters with a cigarette stolen from Mary's cigarette case. Slipping out the back, she nearly jumps when she sees Thomas, a cigarette in hand, uniform lying slightly wrinkled and loose on his lanky frame.<p>

He stands when he sees her. "Ma'am."

She waves him to sit. "Stay," she whispers, as he turns to leave. He obliges.

She holds her cigarette up with a nervous laugh, and he lights it for her. Whatever he may be thinking right now, she honestly couldn't care. Her lipstick leaves a print against the white paper, and she can't help but breathe deep and hope maybe the smoke can etch instructions into her insides, lets her know how to be cosmopolitan and chic and everything she has difficulty becoming. Edith has struggled her entire life with belonging, and the older she gets, the tighter the world feels, like stays pulled too tightly, she feels ready to explode, to burst -

Instead, she takes practiced inhales on the cigarette, wondering where else her life can go from here.

In the low light of nearby lanterns, she notes the hard line of Thomas' jaw.

Flicking the ash into the yard, she can't help but think it would hardly be new – Sybil herself has already been caught casting eyes at the chauffeur.

Thomas' lips twitch for a second, and she feels a sudden urge to laugh. The lines of displeasure are written so plainly into his face that she wonders how no one has ever noticed before. But maybe they're creatures of the same species, Thomas and she – spirits too restless to remain in a place that's so insistent on their mediocrity.

The cigarette burns low and she quietly inches over.

She doesn't think, just reaches for him, grabbing him and pressing her lips roughly against his. He resists, pushes her away with a look of disgust and horror before striding back inside. She wonders how she must look, lipstick smudged into a scowl across her face, hair down and wild, a half-finished cigarette between her fingers -

ever the wild woman she once told herself she could never be.

Not _Lady _Edith Crawley, dignified, wealthy, aristocratic, ignored, unloved, disrespected – _no_, it couldn't possibly be.

She smokes the cigarette down until the heat tinges her fingers.

* * *

><p>Thomas announces his leave from Downton with the onset of the war, and Edith blinks, astounded by the way she still manages to hold her teacup and saucer steady.<p>

He doesn't meet her glance.

* * *

><p>Downton becomes a shell of itself during the war.<p>

They become too used to huddling in the wine cellar – she always ends up pressed against Mary and Sybil, as if they were cast of the same mold or could ever be returned to it. Mary walks around with her expression perpetually blank, and Sybil continues to lobby for her causes with all the strength and passion Mary once used to possess.

Edith wonders how the war must have changed her.

* * *

><p>Sybil returns from a shift at volunteering for the war effort one night, exhausted, and says, "Have you been to see the soldiers, Edith? The war - "<p>

Mary sits with her book open on her lap, eyes staring ahead, deep in thought.

"Nursing is - " Sybil shakes for a second and Edith considers asking her to lie with her head in Edith's lap, as they did once when they were children. "Well, I'm not going to lie – it's difficult, but it feels more rewarding than anything I've ever done up to this point. You could take one of my shifts down at the hospital."

Edith vaguely wonders if bombs would make the ground shake, wonders if war ever sounds like quite the world-destroying event it is. "I'll go on Monday," she replies.

And then, silence slips back into the room.

Mary barely looks at any of them anymore.

* * *

><p>Edith meets someone at the hospital – a soldier with a ready laugh and shrapnel in his body – that makes her entire body alight. He calls her Lady, and she feels herself truly blush for the first time in years.<p>

A soldier.

He makes her question whether she ought to have held such stock in titles in the first place.

* * *

><p>She agrees to take over one of Sybil's late shifts when Sybil finds herself desperately wanting to go to a rally with Branson.<p>

Sybil throws her arms around Edith, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

Edith supposes this is what everyone means by mending bridges.

* * *

><p>And it's that night that he tries to stay awake for her, despite the heaviness in his eyes. She smiles and he slips his hand into hers with an ease that she never suspected would be possible.<p>

The clock chimes two when he kisses her. His mouth is warm and slightly dry, but she smiles against his lips and wonders if this is what it was always meant to feel like, to carve a home in someone else's embrace.

He gives her a salute and she presses a kiss to his forehead with a gentle chide before turning to the rest of her rounds.

* * *

><p>Sybil returns from one of her shifts later in the week with a bright smile, as Mary's expression perks up for a brief moment. "Head nurse yelled at me today," she says, and they turn to each other, confused. "Said the other soldiers were saying I was going around <em>kissing <em>soldiers and ignoring others." Sybil bounces, tired, but genuinely happy - "Have you found someone, Edith?"

And Mary walks over, sits on the edge of the bed.

Edith bites her lip, her cheeks pink. She doesn't even have to say anything.

"Maybe it's fate," Sybil says, and Edith bursts into giggles.

They all start laughing, eyes watering, for a reason none of them can place, but it fills the cracks in the room until it feels like they're children again, the lights turned high, their room a beacon of brightness in the dark.

* * *

><p>Each time Edith considers broaching the topic with Father, she spends more time considering an elopement.<p>

She supposes that's how she knows she's really changed.

* * *

><p>She tells her mother over an anxiously smoked cigarette in the sitting room, legs draping over the side of the armchair in the way that annoys her mother <em>just so <em>and she can already feel the distaste in the atmosphere.

Anna offers to bring them tea, but Mother waves her off.

"You've met a soldier at the hospital?"

Edith takes another drag, thinking of dark nights lingering by the back door, and the news of Thomas' death in the trenches. She tells her mother the entire story.

In her head, she can't help but think that if she hears another speech on the necessity of sacrifice, she might turn on every gas lamp in the house out of spite.

* * *

><p>Sybil walks with her one day to the hospital, telling her elopement merits a consideration.<p>

When she steals away to see him during her break, he simply hands her the papers – a call to return to duty.

"But – but you've barely recovered," she whispers.

"They need the men," he replies.

The paper shakes in her hand, and it isn't until he takes her into his arms that she realizes how hard her sobs are. She presses her knuckles against her white mouth, wondering when it will be enough, when her penance, her sacrifice, will be enough; surely, her past actions against Mary haven't warranted such divine retribution?

He kisses her and reassures her of his writing her; she kneels on his bed and tries to memorize as much of him as she can.

She has never prayed often, but -

Better late than never, isn't that the saying?

* * *

><p>His letters don't come often, but when they do, she notes the packed tightness of his script, the jagged edges of his consonants, the brownish pages, as if he has exhaled smoke onto them himself. One page, she recognizes a smudge of an ink fingerprint and presses her finger along the outline, as if to feel where he once was.<p>

He calls her dearest Edith and writes of his love and occasionally mentions the trenches.

_I know you're strong enough to read it, dear girl_ – he says, and she finds herself remembering the hard line of his jaw that night at the hospital when she cried.

* * *

><p>The last letter arrives a year later -<p>

She attributes the extra long gap in writing to problems with the post, to interrupted opportunities -

_Miss,_

_I knew Robert wrote to you quite a lot and thought you ought to know. He passed – caught one of the mortars during the last ambush attack. He had your letter in his pocket – thought I'd send you what he had started_.

She feels her chest tighten, finds that she can't breathe and sprints, runs full gallop towards her bedroom. It feels too far and she bursts through to one of the drawing rooms, where Mary sits, writing a letter at one of the tables.

She doesn't say anything, sits down with as relaxed a motion as she can manage.

She isn't sure when it breaks, when _she _breaks but -

The next thing she knows, Mary's lifting her to her feet, helping her towards the bedroom, the letter crushed in her hand.

* * *

><p>They walk into the bedroom where Sybil's rushing to try to ready herself to head out, although she stops the minute she sees them.<p>

Edith can't breathe, can't think – her body shakes with the weight of the sobs, with the weight of every sacrifice she has been made to bear.

Surely, surely -

They can't expect her to carry any more.

* * *

><p>On the letter, the last lines he had ever written -<p>

_dearest girl, i'll return before _

A messy scrawl followed with a large ink blot.

She can't help but laugh.

It isn't until she wonders how she's still sitting that she realizes Mary's hand is still seized on hers, holding her up.

She leans against Mary -

none of them speak.

* * *

><p>They sneak out through servant quarters to the back door where they share a cigarette and a pocketed flask of brandy.<p>

Edith sags against the door, Sybil and Mary sit nearby.

The smoke passes between them like secrets of girlhood, truths none of them ever felt comfortable enough to share.

"I'm sorry," Mary says.

And for once, Edith thinks – that might be enough.

She takes the cigarette from Mary's cold thin fingers, left hand still free of an engagement ring -

A long drag, and she exhales her apology in a cloud of smoke.

Sybil whispers something neither of them can hear.

* * *

><p>They never speak of love, although Edith believes that for once, they may have stumbled upon it.<p>

The brandy flask is warm between the three of them.

They stay outside until the last ember of the cigarette dies down, their toes cold.

"Let's go in," Mary whispers then. "It's late." Edith pauses for a moment, watching the milky grey of a late night. "Edith?"

She nods, and turns towards them – she doesn't say a word.

They walk, three in a line, back towards their bedrooms.

* * *

><p>Cinderella left her sisters-who-weren't-her-sisters for glass shoes, as if they couldn't shatter halfway along the road and leave her alone with bloodied feet and no other prospects.<p>

She supposes waiting for the dull noise of peace to start up again requires greater strength.

At breakfast the following morning, Sybil takes a seat next to her, squeezes her hand as the servants bring out tea.

* * *

><p>"Are you feeling all right?" Sybil whispers.<p>

Edith squeezes her hand in response.


End file.
